ABSTRACT
The study of marriage is rich in content—unique, in fact—because it is the only heterosexual relationship between two people of more or less equal maturity where sex is overt. Resistance towards attempting to make sense of a couple’s Interaction and distress may often lie within the therapist and belongs to the therapist’s own internal world as well as to that of his clients. Certain patterns of defensive interaction, agreed upon unconsciously by a couple, are established in the first place to defend against a shared fear. In attempting to understand the rigidity of a defensive system operating between couples, we start from the assumption that at some point in the past experience of each something has happened to make a defence necessary. In therapy, the “inevitableness” of a couple’s interaction is explored to discover its meaning—why it is as it is, and how it serves as both a constant preoccupation with a hidden dread and defence against knowing about it.
